Chapter 49: The Ruling

Harlan read the telegram twice. Then he read it a third time and handed it to Silas.

Silas read it with his pencil in his hand and did not write anything down.

“When was this sent?” he said.

“Yesterday afternoon,” Kessler said. “It came into the depot at Walla Walla and the depot called the co-op and Harold took the message and brought it up.” He looked at his folder. “There is a second telegram. It came in the same batch and it is addressed to me and it says the Council has appointed a culling officer for this territory and the officer is on his way.”

“Who is the officer?” Harlan said.

Kessler looked at the telegram in his hand and did not say anything for a moment.

“It says the officer is a man named Silas,” he said. “It says the Council has appointed the investigator as the culling officer because he is already in the territory and knows the ground.”

Everybody turned and looked at Silas.

Silas put the telegram down on the step.

“I did not ask for this,” he said. “I did not know about it. I have been in this territory for three weeks and I have sent one report to Boise and that report said the rogue matter needed to be heard by the Alphas and not decided by a cull.” He picked up his folder. “Somebody in Boise has overruled me and used my name to do it.”

“Who?” Harlan said.

“The only man in Boise who can overrule an investigator and appoint a culling officer is the chief clerk.” Silas looked at the telegram. “And the chief clerk is Elias Kessler. The man standing on your porch.”

Kessler’s face went gray.

“I did not send that,” he said. “I have been in this territory since Tuesday and I have not sent anything to Boise except the report I have not finished writing. I did not appoint anyone. I do not have the authority to appoint anyone.”

“Then somebody has been using your name,” Silas said.

The square had emptied except for the ones who had stayed. Harlan and Silas and Kessler on the steps. Me and Elias and June by the barn. Hannah and Arthur Renn by the fence. And a handful of the pack who had not gone home, standing at the edge of the square with their collars up and their hands in their pockets, listening.

“I want to see the wire,” Harlan said. “The actual wire. Not the copy the depot wrote down.”

Kessler went to his car and came back with a slip of paper. It was thin and yellow and it had been folded twice and the message was in pencil, written in the telegraph clerk’s hand.

Harlan read it and handed it to Silas and Silas read it and handed it to me.

It said: To the chief clerk, Council of Alphas, Boise. The Council has reviewed the rogue matter in the Palouse Ridge territory and has ruled. The wolf known as Elias is to be culled in the territory on the twenty-ninth of September. The cull is to be carried out by the Council’s own hunters under the direction of the investigator Silas, who is appointed culling officer. Any wolf who interferes with the cull is to be culled with the rogue. Signed, the Council of Alphas.

“There is no signature,” I said. “There is just the words the Council of Alphas.”

“That is how the Council signs a ruling,” Kessler said. “The Council does not sign its rulings. The clerk signs them and stamps them and sends them out.” He looked at the telegram. “But the clerk is supposed to send them with the seal. There is no seal on this. There is no clerk’s mark. There is no number in the register.”

Silas had gone very still.

“There is no number in the register,” he said slowly. “That is a thing I should have seen at once.”

“What does it mean?” Harlan said.

“It means this is not a ruling,” Silas said. “It is a telegram that says it is a ruling. It came from Boise and it came through the depot and it was written on Council paper and it has the Council’s words on it. But it did not go through the register and it was not signed by a clerk and it was not stamped with the seal.” He looked up. “Somebody in Boise wrote this telegram by hand and paid the depot to send it. Somebody who knows how the Council writes its rulings and knows what the depot will accept.”

Kessler sat down on the steps.

“My father,” he said. “My father is the only man in Boise who can write a ruling and send it without the register. He has been the clerk for forty years. He does not need the register because everyone in the depot knows his hand.” He put his face in his hands. “My father has sent a false ruling into this territory and put my name on it.”

Harlan looked at the telegram in his hand.

“Then the ruling is false,” he said. “It is not a Council ruling and I am not bound by it.”

“It is false and it is not bound by anything,” Silas said. “But it will be acted on. There are hunters on their way to this territory with a paper in their pocket that says they are the Council’s hunters and they have a Council cull order. They will not stop to ask whether the order went through the register. They will find the wolf and they will cull him and then they will file their report and it will be too late.” He looked at me. “The Council has used your testimony, warden. Not the false ruling. The ruling was already written. But the hearing tonight gave the Council what it needed. The whole pack has just heard the Beta of this pack confess to a murder and heard an old man confess to finishing it and heard three women claim the Luna’s blood. That is a pack in chaos and a territory in dispute, and the Council can say it sent its hunters in to keep the peace.”

I sat down on the bottom step of the pack house.

“How long do we have?” I said.

“The hunters were on the road yesterday,” Silas said. “They will be here in two days if the snow holds off. Three if it does not.”

“And the petition?”

“The petition goes to Boise and the Alphas read it and they decide whether to come here and hold a hearing. That takes a month.” Silas put his folder down. “We do not have a month. We have two days.”

I stood up.

“Then we do not wait for the Alphas,” I said. “We go to Boise now. Tonight. You and me and Arthur Renn and Hannah and the stones and the record. We take the petition and we take the telegram and we take the box of letters from the tack room and we drive to Boise and we put it all in front of the chief clerk’s desk and we make him answer for it.”

Silas looked at me.

“The chief clerk is the man who wrote the false ruling,” he said. “He is not going to open the door to us.”

“He will open the door if his son is standing behind us,” I said. “And if he does not open it, we go to the Alphas directly. There is an Alpha in Boise. There is always an Alpha in Boise. The Council meets in a building but the Alphas are wolves and they have a pack in that city and they will hear a claim of blood if it is brought to them by three Lunas.”

Harlan came down the steps.

“The road to Boise is three hundred miles,” he said. “The snow is deep and the truck is old and you will be stopped before you get to the pass.”

“Then we go through the pass before they know we are gone,” I said.

Harlan looked at me for a long moment.

“There is one thing I can do,” he said. “I can hold the hunters here. If they come into this territory and there is a hearing going on and the Alpha of the pack is standing in the square with a paper in his hand, they will have to wait. It will buy you a day. Maybe two.”

“Then hold them,” I said.

He nodded.

“Wren,” he said. “There is a thing you should know before you go. The telegram said the culling officer is the investigator. If the hunters come and Silas is not here to take the appointment, they will look for him. And if they find him with you on the road to Boise, they will call it obstruction and they will have the right to take him.”

Silas picked up his folder.

“Then I will not be on the road to Boise,” he said. “I will be in the pack square with the Alpha, holding the hunters, and I will tell them the appointment is false and I will show them the register.” He looked at me. “You will have to go without me.”

The square was cold and the snow had begun again and the wind was coming down from the north.

“Who goes with me?” I said.

“I do,” June said.

“I do,” Arthur Renn said.

“I do,” Hannah said.

And Elias stepped out from the side of the barn and said, “I am going wherever you are going. There is no version of this where I am not with you.”

I looked at the four of them and then at Harlan and Silas and the pack house and the square and the snow.

“Then we leave at first light,” I said. “And we take the stones and the record and the letters and the petition, and we drive to Boise, and we do not stop until we get there.”

And then the door of the pack house opened and Erik Renn came out onto the steps with a guard behind him and said, “You will not get through the pass. The road is watched. There is a man at the depot at Walla Walla with a list of every truck that leaves this county.” He looked at me. “But I know a road that is not on the map. I have been using it for eighty-eight years.”